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The Accidental Abolitionist

Adam Goodheart’s article (“The Shrug That Made History”) did a wonderful job of explaining the significance of little-known Fort Monroe to the outcome of the Civil War. I hope that despite current economic problems, Congress will see a Fort Monroe National Park as an opportunity to memorialize and celebrate the most resonant theme of our history, the desire for a more perfect union.

The first slaves in the territory that we now call the United States were not brought to Virginia in 1619. That happened 54 years earlier, when St. Augustine, Fla., was founded by Spain’s Pedro Menéndez de Avilés on Sept. 8, 1565. Menéndez’s agreement with King Philip II afforded him three years to import 500 African slaves.

JUDITH SERAPHIN,St. Augustine, Fla., e-mail

Goodheart perpetuates a myth about Rosa Parks and the civil rights movement. Parks did not “decide” to sit down in the whites-only seats on the bus; it was not a whim of the moment for a tired working woman. She was an experienced and sophisticated civil rights activist. Her peaceful resistance that day was a tactic long planned by the Montgomery chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. for their assault on the segregation of the public bus service.

HELEN HILL UPDIKE,New York, e-mail

A version of this letter appears in print on April 17, 2011, on Page MM8 of the Sunday Magazine with the headline: The Accidental Abolitionist. Today's Paper|Subscribe